Month: April 2017

Dear God, my prayers to you are in words. But it is so easy to speak as I believe I ought; words are of so little value. Let my words reflect my heart, O Lord. Let my actions prove my faith in you. What would you have me do? Let me pursue this doggedly.

Just as my most honest prayer will not be in words but in deeds, neither should I believe you will speak to me in language. You guide me, Lord, quietly and firmly, through events. Let me learn to see your hand in things. Let me watch for you.

Lord, let your power flow through me, your life, your energy. Let me bear fruit for others. Let me do your work without fanfare and without trying to be noticed. The tree does not seek praise for the fruit it delivers.

Lord, thy will be done. Give me my daily bread. Forgive me my trespasses. Deliver me from evil. These are the things you teach to be elements of a prayerful life.

Dear God, let me place my attention and energy where they ought to be. I get distracted by worldly concerns and before I know it I have focused exclusively on my own plans and designs, on worries that I face, on my physical body even.

I pretend these things are under my control, which is illusion. Worse, I place them before you. I spend more energy and time attending to trivia than I do tending my relationship with you.

Lord, I pray in the morning that Thy will be done, yet I myself do so little to bring that about.

Let me be active in seeking your will. Let me exert effort to make it reality — let me not try just to discern, but to act.

You grant me so much! Every need I have is fulfilled daily, and it has always been so. Let me not act as if you might fail me, but instead be your servant, working to make your will manifest, confident that all needed supplies will be delivered.

Let me take responsibility for doing my part. Let me work with a joyful and cheerful spirit.

Dear God, grant me right motives today. I follow the rules, I perform my duties – yet my inner life is filled with selfishness and pride. I drag myself into my tasks, because deep down I am slothful. I look for ways to shirk my obligations. I seek nothing so much as to look good and be told I am so.

Dear God, my self-assessment is almost always wrong. My feelings are frequently unconnected with reality. It goes in both directions: I feel on top of the world, performing perfectly, all the while ignoring significant shortcomings – or, I feel in the depths of despair, a failure, while I ignore and diminish those things at which I am succeeding. Rarely, if ever, do I see myself correctly.

Lord, let me pursue your will for me regardless of whether this is accompanied by elation or despair. Let me be consistent, and put in consistent effort. My emotions divert me. I seek to amplify the good and run from the unpleasant. All this is a distraction from seeking your will.

Seeking your will is the proper exertion of my own will – irrespective of my own perceptions. Lord, this is true freedom from the bondage of self.

My dear God, let me gladly accept what you show me about myself. Let the recognition of my shortcomings spur me to improve, and let my feelings of success energize me with joy to spread to my fellows. Let me steadfastly seek your will, moment to moment, day after day.

Let this day be one among many, filled with your love, yet at the same time unremarkably similar to the ones before and after. Thy will be done.

Dear God, the fear and worry I experience is often out of all proportion to its apparent cause. I may face calamity with equanimity, yet at the same time, anticipating some trivial interaction paralyzes me.

I can only conclude from this that the majority of my fears are false. They are self-generated and based on illusion.

Lord, if this is so, let me act accordingly. Let me dismiss my worries as I would dismiss any other trivial matter: with a wave of my hand.

You set me the task of delivering your love to this world. I therefore have, even in the most complicated situations, my clear and simple orders: deliver love.

Today, Lord, how can I best deliver love? Let this task sustained me. The love in me cannot be depleted and indeed grows the more I transmit.